If you thought you had ridden yourself of dealing with Jay Cutler on Sundays, think again.
But first, one last look at Cutler’s Bears career:
The former Bears quarterback who officially retired on Friday to take a job as an analyst on FOX’s No. 2 broadcast team will make his debut during the Bears-Titans game during Week 3 of the preseason. However, if you can’t wait to hear his take on the Bears’ developing quarterback situation, you are not alone.
One way or another, Cutler as a media personality should be a treat. Because if he thought the critiques were coming in hot when he was slinging the pigskin, he just took a job that is easier to pick apart and could be equally as tasking.
Cutler wasted no time diving into his role as an analyst, handing out some unsolicted advice to the Bears if the team gets off to a slow start under free agent signee Mike Glennon. With an eye on Mitch Trubisky’s future, Cutler told ESPN 1000’s Waddle and Silvy Show that he wouldn’t throw Trubisky to the lions if the team was off to a slow start. “If it’s going downhill, there is no way I’m playing him,” Cutler said. “For what? So he can go out there and take a beating and get off to a rough start as an NFL quarterback?”
Part of the difficulty in developing a quarterback is finding the right time and place to get his feet wet. There will be an inordinate amount of pressure on the Bears to play Trubisky right away if the team gets off to a slow start. And while that’s a distinct possibility (the schedule is front-loaded with some uber-talented teams) the Bears aren’t in a place to sacrifice long-term development of a player at the game’s most important position for short-term satisfaction.
Perhaps Cutler’s move to the media shows that his perception is starting to change. It’s a fair perspective posed by Adam Jahns of the Chicago Sun-Times, who highlighted the change in coverage as Cutler matured as a player. He went from being seen as a surly and flippant quarterback with questionable body language to a teammate beloved by team leaders such as Kyle Long and coaches like Adam Gase. There wasn’t a time earlier in his career where I thought Cutler would make a smooth transition from the playing field to the broadcast booth, but perhaps his blunt tone and general honesty is better served in an analyst role than in a postgame press conference quarterbacking a sub-.500 team.
Also at the Sun-Times, Patrick Finley and Mark Potash round up Cutler’s best quotes from his Bears career. On second thought, maybe that broadcast career was really a long-time coming even though it was bubbling underneath the surface.
Pro Football Weekly also put together a list of why Cutler will be a great fit for the broadcast booth.
Anyone else looking forward to Week 3 of the NFL preseason schedule yet? Perhaps these sound clips from NFL Films will hold you over until then:
Speaking of lists, here is one I wish the Bears were on. Chase Goodbread of NFL.com used Gil Brandt’s prospect rankings to figure out which teams added the most talent on offense through the draft. And even though the Bears picked the top quarterback, they finished outside the pack as they didn’t add enough impact talent at skill positions to make a case for inclusion. And that’s quite unfortunate for Trubisky’s sake moving forward.
Meanwhile, the Green Bay Packers claimed a top-5 spot on Goodbread’s list of teams who drafted the most talent on defense. They’re not going anywhere, folks.
Having stability at the quarterback position can work wonders for a draft board. For example, the Arizona Cardinals could have drafted their heir apparent to Carson Palmer in this class – but didn’t want to force it when picking in this class. Even though GM Steve Keim acknowledged the need to address the future of the position, Keim said he had an eye on the 2018 draft as a place to fill that need and instead used the 2017 class to help give Arizona one last push in its competitive window with Palmer, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, and head coach Bruce Arians.
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